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Weekend in Brummie Land
Feb. 12th, 2006 08:07 pmMy 84-year-old grandma's favourite TV show at the moment is Dancing on Ice. I never thought I'd one day be sitting in front of a TV with her, drinking tea and eating biscuits, while a pair of campily dressed couples ice-skated to Bonnie Tyler's "I Need a Hero." Then we watched Casualty, possibly the worst hospital soap in the history of television.
Other than that, I spent the weekend chatting with her and catching up with gossip from my family in Birmingham. At 84, she's in amazing good health. She lives by herself and goes downtown at least twice a week. She only depends on my aunt to come on Sundays for some cleaning and bills sorting. Her apartment is small, cosy and pink; each room has a red cord which she can pull if she ever needs an ambulance; a widescreen TV sits by the window that overlooks her shared garden, with a small collection of DVD musicals underneath it. I gave her the anniversary edition of the BBC's Pride and Prejudice and when she learned that was the exact same series with Colin Firth in it, she gave a long and happy sigh. She also loved my M&S assortment of Viennese biscuits.
Like my previous visits, I tried to get as many stories from her about the past as possible. I learned this time that her grandfather, from her mother's side, was surnamed Urly (my aunt is trying to trace our family tree), that her family owned a famous bakery in Birmingham during the 30s and 40s that delivered freshly-baked bread on a horse-drawn wagon (and that she loved to steal scones when she was a little girl), that she spent a few years living in Notting Hill as a young girl and went fishing in Hyde Park's pond, that she checked bolts in a factory during the 2nd World War, and that many people mistook her for Italian because of her dark hair and tanned skin. It got me thinking that perhaps I should buy a tape recorder and try to save all these stories, for the day when she's gone.
This morning, my uncle Michael and my cousin Michael dropped by to say hello. I left them around noon and only got back into London by 4pm. Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire made me good company in the coach. I took a much needed bath (with just a camomile candle for company) and cooked dinner. After catching up with LJ, I'm going to watch the brilliant Agatha Christie's Marple, on ITV1.
Other than that, I spent the weekend chatting with her and catching up with gossip from my family in Birmingham. At 84, she's in amazing good health. She lives by herself and goes downtown at least twice a week. She only depends on my aunt to come on Sundays for some cleaning and bills sorting. Her apartment is small, cosy and pink; each room has a red cord which she can pull if she ever needs an ambulance; a widescreen TV sits by the window that overlooks her shared garden, with a small collection of DVD musicals underneath it. I gave her the anniversary edition of the BBC's Pride and Prejudice and when she learned that was the exact same series with Colin Firth in it, she gave a long and happy sigh. She also loved my M&S assortment of Viennese biscuits.
Like my previous visits, I tried to get as many stories from her about the past as possible. I learned this time that her grandfather, from her mother's side, was surnamed Urly (my aunt is trying to trace our family tree), that her family owned a famous bakery in Birmingham during the 30s and 40s that delivered freshly-baked bread on a horse-drawn wagon (and that she loved to steal scones when she was a little girl), that she spent a few years living in Notting Hill as a young girl and went fishing in Hyde Park's pond, that she checked bolts in a factory during the 2nd World War, and that many people mistook her for Italian because of her dark hair and tanned skin. It got me thinking that perhaps I should buy a tape recorder and try to save all these stories, for the day when she's gone.
This morning, my uncle Michael and my cousin Michael dropped by to say hello. I left them around noon and only got back into London by 4pm. Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire made me good company in the coach. I took a much needed bath (with just a camomile candle for company) and cooked dinner. After catching up with LJ, I'm going to watch the brilliant Agatha Christie's Marple, on ITV1.
